


Bodies Never Lie

by marauder_in_warblerland



Series: Glee Collage Fest 2014 [2]
Category: Glee
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-12
Updated: 2014-07-12
Packaged: 2018-02-08 11:34:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1939527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marauder_in_warblerland/pseuds/marauder_in_warblerland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unique dreams, and in dreams, she’s dancing.</p>
<p>“The truest expression of a people is in its dance and in its music. Bodies never lie.” <br/>- Agnes de Mille</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bodies Never Lie

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was originally written for the Glee Collage Fest 2014. Prompt: Dream.
> 
> Thank you to gluttonouspenguin for the beta and encouragement!

Unique still remembers the first time she never wanted to wake up.

She was seven, and the dress was pink with silver rhinestones around the bodice, like a crown that circled her entire body. Her best friend Anna had just started ballet, so Unique knew where the classes were and how all the little girls in the class would start by lining up at the barre to kick their legs into the air. Anna had been able to tell her that much at recess, before Mrs. Dahlene shooed them back inside, but she hadn’t gotten any further.

Unique remembers wanting to know everything. She went to bed that night longing for details about the lesson and the teacher and, most of all, about the dress Anna got to wear for exactly one hour each week. She knew that it was too special to take out when she went over for dinner. Anna’s mother had said that it might get messy, so Unique’s mind had filled in all the rest. In her dream, she had the best dress in the entire class. Her dress caught the light and held it close, so that there wasn’t quite enough left for all of the other little girls, but they looked wonderful too. Anna was there, in light yellow taffeta, and Maureen and Katie L. Even Josh was standing in the back, even though there weren’t supposed to be any boys in the class.

Her dream class didn’t have a teacher telling them what to do, so they just danced and danced for days. Unique remembers spinning. In the middle of the shiny, wooden dance floor, she had her hands thrown out on both sides and was just spinning and spinning, until the other dancers blurred into a rainbow of sparkling color. The wind from the fan or the door or just her own moving body caught her skirt and lifted it into wide circle around her body, like a spell.

_Do not pass_ , it said. _This girl is dancing_.

She woke up crying. For ten minutes, she squeezed her eyes tight and begged the dream to let her back in, but she couldn’t go back. Instead, she went to school. She dressed up as Wade Adams and sat on the school bus like a little boy. She wasn’t really sure how little boys were supposed to sit, but no one seemed to notice she was pretending.

The dream came back every few years. In sixth grade the ballet class became an empty stage and in ninth grade it was the darkened shimmer of a school dance. The dress grew with her, curving to a body that she only recognized in her head. Every time, she was spinning and she was _magnificent_.

It wasn’t until her senior year of high school that she noticed that her dream-selves were always alone. The other little girls— and Josh— were in the room, but they weren’t really with her. She was spinning like the prima ballerina on the top of a music box and she didn’t need a partner. She didn’t need anyone, until the dream came back and she found someone holding her hands. This time, she was in the choir room, pink dress already spinning, but the rest of the ballet class had disappeared. Her sparkly rainbow was gone and all she could see was Ryder Lynn.

She was lucid enough to jerk back in surprise, but dream Ryder didn’t care. He just kept spinning and clutching her hands between their bodies, like they were the only things keeping him from spinning off into space. Perhaps it was true. Maybe if she’d let go, he would have disappeared like the rest of her childhood friends.

Slowly, she looked up and allowed herself to just watch him being deliriously happy in her direction. He didn’t seem smitten, not that she would know, but the soft pleasure in his eyes didn’t look like he wanted anything at all. He just looked happy in her circle of light. Somehow, she knew that the dream was still hers to command. If Ryder was there, he was a visitor, there to whirl amidst the pictures in her mind, so she kept spinning. In a choir room made of brown and black swirls of color, she leaned back and let his arms keep her from falling.

Usually, the dreams just end. An unseen hand will yank her out of her reverie and back into the light of day. Her eyes will snap open, and she will try in vain to remember the colors before they fade away. This time though, there was no jerk back to her bed. Instead, the dream faded around them, like a theater going dim before the movie can finally begin. At the center of the creeping darkness, she stopped dancing, and as she opened her mouth their bodies finally faded away.

She woke with a sigh. If that had actually been Ryder, standing there and being stupidly happy, she could have shaken him and asked what on earth he thought he was doing there. After a year of tiptoeing around delicate subjects and wandering into awkward silences, how could he _dare_ —

But no, that wasn’t actually Ryder and she had no one to blame but herself. They might have declared themselves friends— as if they could change anything by declaring it so— but some part of her mind wasn’t ready to listen.

_Friends. Right._ She turned onto her side and glared at the corner of her pillow. _That wasn’t just friends._ She would happily spend days spinning and dancing with Marley or even Kitty if she was in the right mood, but her brain hadn’t pulled them into her fantasy. It had chosen Ryder Lynn— beautiful, silly, oblivious Ryder Lynn. He, of all people, got to see the purest version of her self, her soul, or her _whatever_ that she could imagine. The irony sank like lead in her stomach; she hadn’t associated that part of her “Uniqueness” with him in a very long time.  

With a weight in her gut and a sharp pinch in the back of her skull, Unique finally pulled herself out of bed and got dressed for school. If her parents noticed that her lipstick was a bit brighter that morning or that her skirt had a little extra swirl, they didn’t say anything. Like those days on the school bus, no one seemed to notice the difference. She only felt it in the cafeteria, after three classes that passed like fog in front of her eyes. Ryder was sitting with Jake, Marley, and Kitty, like usual. Recently, Dottie had started slipping in on the edges of their little clan, and they were all trying not to scare her away. Marley knelt on the bench and waved, her entire body swaying with the motion, and Unique froze.

The room was spinning. 

Ryder was acting something out with his bread roll and plastic fork, making them chase each other around his tray as Dottie watched in silent delight. He looked almost happy there, certainly content, but nothing like the raw joy she’d seen on his face last night. That wasn’t really him in her dream, but she knew that it could be. He could be that happy, the question remained: could he ever be that happy looking—really looking—at her?

Maybe it was the potato salad talking, but Unique suddenly needed to know. She needed to see with her own eyes whether that beautiful dancing girl, if _that_ Unique that she’d known since she was seven could live out here in the real world. Maybe real Ryder wouldn’t even notice the difference, but if anyone was ever going to look at her like she was the center of their world, she was going to have to learn how to be that girl, because she would never respect a friend—or a boyfriend—who would settle for less.

She raised a shaky hand to wave back, and carefully wound her way to their table. As she settled between Kitty and Marley, Ryder waved a fork in welcome.

“Ooooh!” Marley grinned. “Someone’s wearing the good lipstick. What the occasion?”

Kitty rolled her eyes. “Please don’t tell me that LadyboysRUs is having another clearance sale. I am simply not dressed for a national holiday.”

As Jake smacked Kitty on the arm, Unique blinked up at her people. If she got up and started dancing right now, they would join her, no questions asked. Unbelievable.

“Are you kidding me, girl? That’s insulting.” she replied, glaring in righteous indignation. “Unique would have warned you to prepare for deals, and I’m fairly certain the raging bitch emporium is fresh out of stock. But,” she smiled, as Kitty slapped her a high five over the table. “Have I ever told you about my friend Anna?”

She started from the beginning, over potato salad and wilted greens. For thirty minutes in the McKinley High cafeteria, she wasn’t pretending and, for just a moment, the room was perfectly still.

 


End file.
